Mr. L. R. Thomas 



a capital quarter in those days ; a lot of good fellows lived 

 round it, and the Essex farmers were sportsmen to a man, 

 and it was in the Garrison Stakes at the Colchester Steeple- 

 chases that I donned silk for the first time. I owned a hunter 

 I thought might win it, and, judging by form, it certainly should 

 have done so. Unfortunately it succumbed to the exigencies 

 of training, and I had to look out for another mount. I was 

 much too keen on a ride in those days to lose a chance, so 

 nominated an old horse that used to be let out for hire. It 

 was a queer-looking beast, and had not been trained, but it 

 made all the running over the four miles of heavy plough, and 

 only got beat a length by a horse called The Monkey. 



" The Colchester district was a very sporting one, and 

 there were a lot of small meetings, at which I had plenty of 

 mounts and was very lucky. When my time was up at the 

 Depot I was too fond of racing to go abroad, so exchanged into 

 the 8oth. 



" Soon afterwards, when at Tenby Races, seeing what I 

 thought was a useful-looking mare win a selling race, I bought 

 her for £66, put her in an overnight hurdle, and a flat race, 

 and won them both. She turned out a very lucky purchase, 

 and won me several races on the flat, over a country, and 

 hurdles ; and I eventually sold her for ^250 to Colonel S. 

 Toogood, who also did very well with her. She was a natural 

 jumper, and I ran her in a steeplechase in Devonshire. She 

 jumped the fences all right, but fell on the flat, and gave me 

 my first bad racing fall, which laid me up for three months. 

 Soon after getting about again I won a hurdle race on her 

 at Wye. 



" At Aldershot that summer I rode three winners, and, 

 later on, bought a mare named Diadem from the late Mr. 

 Saxon, and had an amusingly instructive, though expensive, 



